Protecting the Fortress of My Soul

      When a person moves toward God: Second rule—In persons who are going on intensely purifying their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, the method is contrary to the first rule. For then it is proper to the evil spirit to bite, sadden, and place obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, so that the person may not go forward. And it is proper to the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, and quiet, easing a taking away all obstacles, so that the person may go forward in doing good.                                                         St. Ignatius of Loyola--Discernment of Spirits                                                                                            

 

     With a heart full of gratitude, sitting before the Lord, I wrote in my journal:

     Oh, My Dear Sweet God, 

     The revelation that You gave me about being a pilgrim on this pilgrimage back to You was a game changer!

Be A Pilgrim--Not A Tourist

       “The human heart plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps." Proverbs 16: 9

    It was almost 9 years ago, that I experienced my first group pilgrimage. Sometime before we left, we met as a group with the priest who would be leading us on our journey. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to hear all the details about our trip.

Shaken From My Sleep

      “O my God, You and You alone are all wise and knowing! You know, You have determined everything that will happen to us from first to last. You have ordered things in the wisest way, and You know what will be my lot year by year until I die. You know how long I have to live. You know how I shall die. You have precisely ordained everything, sin excepted. Every event of my life is the best for me that could be for it comes from You. You bring me on year by year, by your wonderful Providence, from youth to age, with the most perfect wisdom, and with the most perfect love.”       

                                                                               St. John Henry Cardinal Newman

     Holy Scripture confirms this truth: “You have seen my actions; in Your book they are all written; my days were limited before one of them existed” (Psalm 139: 16).

PLEASE SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!!!

      “Mary’s childlike trust consists in giving a full yes to God – without knowing everything this yes implies. This complete yes is full of trust, not of detailed knowledge of what is to come. In his encyclical on Mary, Pope St. John Paul II captured this dimension of her faith: ‘To believe means ‘to abandon oneself’ to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and humbly recognizing ‘how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways’ (Rom. 11:33)’ (Redemptoris Mater, no. 14). Mary teaches us how to say yes, too, with her childlike simplicity and trust, even when the full truth often lies in darkness.”                                                                                                                                                                                                 Icon of Trust – Fr Slawomir Szkredka

     Unlike our Mother Mary, I have been struggling with giving my full yes to God.    

     I feel like I have been living under “the cloud of unknowing” for the last year and a half. I wrestle with God Who asks for my full and complete trust.

Jesus--A Prisoner of Love

     In this Sacrament, then, under the appearance of bread, Our Lord and Savior gives us His Flesh and Blood for food for our souls. It was not enough for Him that He should become one of ourselves by adopting a human nature like our own. It was not enough that He should share the hardships of a life like our own – that He should suffer and die and atone for our sins, in our name. He loved us, and He would not rest until He should be completely united to us. And in His love, He devised the most extraordinary method of union, in which He Himself becomes our food! Truly a tremendous lover!” Dom Mary Eugene Boylan

     Our dear sweet Jesus is madly in love with us and has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove His love to us, yet many make a halfhearted effort to get to Mass, while others have walked away from their Catholic faith. 

Embrace with Submission: Submit with Faith

      “The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear on them. Would to God that...all men could know how very easy it would be for them to arrive at a high degree of sanctity. They would only have to fulfill the simple duties of Christianity and of their state in life; to embrace with submission the crosses belonging to that state, and to submit with faith and love to the designs of Providence in all those things that have to be done or suffered without going out of their way to seek occasions for themselves…This is the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means that God, the sovereign director of souls, given them to do or to suffer at each moment."                                                                                                                                             Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade            

     As I read this quote of Fr. de Caussade, from Abandonment to Divine Providence, I take pause…take a deep breathe, and think, you say this is easy? Maybe I misread--oh--not easy, but very easy!

I Surrender!!!

      “Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come!”                Song of Songs 2: 10b – 13

     God was calling me to be with Him. To go and take a break from the difficult 6 months that were now behind me.

     I felt weary. I felt tired. I felt spent! Like a closed stuffy room, I needed to cast open the windows and allow some fresh air to blow through me. I longed for the Spirit of God, to breathe new life in me. I was still reeling with the effects of everything I’d been through, and Papa was well aware of it.